The syntax of possession in Whitesands

This talk investigates the direct (also inalienable) and indirect (also alienable) possession constructions in Whitesands, a language of southern Vanuatu. It shows that Whitesanads has a class of possessive classifiers that make a GENERAL, EAT, DRINK and PLANT distinction. Further, there is evidence that there are a separate class of nouns that take obligatory arguments, i.e. the direct possession structure